2018 was quite the year for Mennonite film, smashing box office records and garnering praise from both fans and critics alike. Without further ado, here are the top ten Mennonite films of 2018.
10. Crazy Rich Mennonites – This summer hit tells the tale of a rich chicken farmer from over by Blumenort who falls in love with a Mennonite girl from the wrong side of the river and tries to convince his uppity chicken farming parents to accept her for who she is: a Klassen.
9. Aunt-Man and the WASP – Aunt-Man and the WASP is about an unlikely friendship between a devout Anglican who lives in the city and a Mennonite man named Darryl who lives with his Taunte Helen.
8. Mary Siemens Returns – This delightful reboot of the 1960s Disney classic tells the tale of Mary Siemens, a fun-loving Mennonite nanny with magical powers like the ability to get children to eat plumi moos and to sing all four verses of the most difficult German hymns.
7. The Gingerich – In typical Mennonite fashion, this reboot of the Dr. Seuss classic is meaner and grumpier than the original ever was.
6. Belezean Rhapsody – This biopic documents the life of a young Mennonite lad with an overbite from the Shipyard Colony who makes it big singing in the night clubs of Belize City.
5. Mission Impossible – The latest addition to the series portrays the never-ending battle to get Uncle Peter to church on-time. Try as she might, Taunte Martha just can’t seem to get that lazy fulen out of bed on Sunday mornings!
4. Solo: The Stan Wiebe Story – This film tells the tale of a lonely “male spinster” who lives all alone in a tiny house on the edge of Hochstadt eating beans from a can and occasionally walking into town to sit on the bench outside the local Walmart and watch the families load Corn Flakes into their minivans. This slow-moving film is art-house cinema at its finest.
3. Aquaman – A Mennonite man discovers his magical power for teetotaling.
2. Avengers – Infinity War – This is the definitive archetypal depiction of the conflict between MBs and GCs…set in a distant future North Kildonan that’s been taken over by robot elders and deacons.
1. A Star is Born Again – A washed-up faasenja falls in love with a young unbaptized woman from the choir. While his career continues to decline, she rises to great heights to become Sunday School co-ordinator.
